The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Merchants of death

    It was a season of love and sharing. A season when people looked out for one another. A season when a neighbour went out of his way to bless a fellow neighbour. A season when we wished one another compliments. But for the people of Southern Kaduna, it was not a time for compliments. Rather, they hid from one another because nobody knew who was who again. For them it was a hate season. The town was literally at war when it should be celebrating the season.

    It was December when the predominantly Christian community was looking forward to Christmas. Families had prepared for the festivities and were waiting anxiously for December 25, the Christmas Day. Then, the unexpected happened. Herdsmen struck in the community, leaving death and destruction in their trail. Southern Kaduna has always been a boiling cauldron. It is a place where people are known to operate on short fuse. The people are easily irritated and can do anything in a fit of anger. This was, however, not the case last month.

    The herdsmen came with a mission to loot and  kill and they had their way. They levelled many towns in Southern Kaduna and killed hundreds of people. For those who do not know, Southern Kaduna people are not lily livered; they can hold their own against any individual or group. They hold tenaciously to their Christian faith and can do whatever it takes to defend what they believe in. But the herdsmen stole in on the community as they have been doing in some other parts of the country. The government should have done something about these herdsmen long before the Southern Kaduna tragedy considering the havoc they have been wreaking on some parts of the country in the South.

    I had thought that they would never strike in the North because they are from there, but they have proved me wrong with their attack on Southern Kaduna, which is the hotbed of agitations in Kaduna State. Whenever Southern Kaduna boils, the country reels under its tremor. Kafanchan is a community in the south of Kaduna. In 1987, there was a religious crisis there which nearly ripped apart the state. The aftershock was felt in Lagos, the federal capital then. Former military President Ibrahim Babangida, who visited Kafanchan, described what happened as the ”civilian equivalent of a coup”. Painfully, 29 years after, the nation seemed to have learnt nothing from that bitter enterprise. If we had, we would have nipped the herdsmen’s attack in the bud.

    The herdsmen have done their worse in Southern Kaduna. They destroyed houses, farms, churches and a cemetery. What happened in Southern Kaduna was sheer madness. The herdsmen went berserk, killing, maiming and looting. The scale of destruction showed that it was a predetermined and well coordinated action. Only God knows what their quarrel with the Southern Kaduna people is about. Whatever it is, should they have resorted to bloodshed to resolve the matter? These herdsmen just love the smell of blood. This is why they are wont to kill and maim to prove their point. What point are they proving? That they are stronger than others or what? Or that they are above the law?

    It is disheartening that these herdsmen have been killing people and getting away with it. How come they have not been called to order? Do they have some powerful people behind them? Those who say they have strong backers may not be wrong after all because of the way they have been carrying on. I do not want to think that the government is deliberately keeping quiet and allowing these herdsmen to run riot across the country. The earlier they are brought to book the better before these attacks snowball into ethnic clashes. The Southern Kaduna mayhem is all the more serious because the herdsmen still struck under the nose of the police that were sent to restore order. Where were the police when this happened?

    The curfew that was imposed on the town also meant nothing to them. On Christmas eve, Goska and some other communities were attacked. If this could happen with a curfew in place and the police on patrol, will it be wrong to say that these herdsmen are being shielded? I do not want to sound like an alarmist, but we have to say things as they are in order to find a lasting solution to this crisis. We cannot just continue to watch while herdsmen, whether Fulani or from outside the country, are killing, maiming and looting at will. We must do something about them before it is too late. And the police must lead the battle to stop them. By the time one or two are made to face the law, the others will know that the game is up.

    But if we continue to treat the issue with kid’s glove, they will also continue to attack and kill people across the country. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has said that 808 people were killed and 53 villages destroyed in the mayhem and declared Sunday as a day of mourning. ”We are to pray fervently for our Southern Kaduna brothers and sisters who are victims of these wanton killings and also for the peace of our dear country Nigeria”, CAN said, adding : “The silence over the ongoing genocide in Kaduna in the last few weeks speaks volume about the perceived official endorsement of the dastardly and ungodly acts”.

    It is the government’s silence on these killings that is making people to impute motives on where President Muhammadu Buhari stands. I believe that the president stands for the country and he said that much in his inaugural speech on May 29, 2015 : ”I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody”. There is no better time than now for him to prove that statement. Where are these marauding herdsmen from? Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai says they are from outside the country. Some people describe them as Fulani. Where they come from does not matter. What should be of concern to us is stopping their murderous act before it balloons into war.

  • The ‘war’ in Southern Kaduna

    Reacting to latest mayhem in Southern Kaduna, Vicar General of the Catholic Archdiocese of Kafanchan, Ibrahim Yakubu told a press conference last week that “53 villages in four local council areas came under attack resulting in the death of 808 people, torching of 1,422 houses, 16 churches, 19 shops and one primary school”. This cycle of violence in the name of religion must have prompted Pastor Adeboye, a leading member of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to praise Ayo Fayose of Ekiti for his courage in facing up to the challenges posed by Fulani herdsmen in his state. Commending the controversial governor, he had said “We thank God for your courage, for your boldness. We are grateful to God for being willing to take risks so that your people can be protected. You have been a governor who knows when to say enough is enough in defence of his people.  And I am sure you know what I am talking about and I am sure the world knows”. I am sure many understand this is not an endorsement of Fayose’s puerile fantasies, infantile rhetoric against Buhari or his receipt of N1.3b ‘Dazukigate’ slush fund as confirmed by Musliu Obanikoro for the pacification of Ekiti in 2014 and acquisition of mansions in choice areas of Lagos and Abuja while salaries of worker are in arrears of several months.

    Adeboye was probably frustrated by lack of resourcefulness of other governors including his brother pastor, Jonah Jang of Plateau who at a period he should be addressing the Fulani herdsmen’s challenge was attempting to steal the chairmanship of governors’ forum after losing the election by 16 to 19 with the help of President Jonathan who once said stealing was not corruption.

    Fayose has not done much beyond his threat to arrest cows and arm his people against Fulani herdsmen who seem to have forgotten Lugard’s declaration after the defeat of the Caliphate in 1903 that the British, the new conquerors, had taken over the powers they once wielded over the conquered Hausa territories but today speak in the National Assembly as if the whole Nigeria is Fulani fiefdom.

    A governor is the chief security officer of the state. The strange ‘unitary’ constitution imposed on federal state by the military has not clearly spelt out how this was to be done with the control of the police and other state apparatus of power by the federal government. But a more resourceful governor from the besieged Middle Belt region could have borrowed a leaf from Lagos State that outwitted the inefficient federal government and its traffic bodies and set up LASTMA to solve perennial Lagos traffic gridlock.

    If nothing else, such an outfit can monitor the movement of Fulani herdsmen who the federal government with its awesome control of apparatus of state power claims is invincible. In seven years, there has been no record of court appearance or indictment of any member of a group described as the ‘fourth most deadly terrorist group in the world’ despite the fact that the group often takes possession of conquered territories. Except the Sultan of Sokoto who claimed ‘Fulani herdsmen are criminals’  and Governor El Rufai of Kaduna who admitted  paying them compensation to forestall further mindless killing of innocent Nigerians, both ex-President Jonathan and  President Buhari have said very little about them.

    I sympathise with Pastor Adeboye and his other Christian leaders who have been forced despite Jesus admonition of ‘turning the other cheek’ to now canvass ‘an eye for an eye’ as contained in the Jewish Torah and in their Arab  half-brother’s Holy Quran, as answer to brutal killings of their members. Unfortunately, the cycle of violence and mindless killing of the innocents have nothing to do with religion. It is nothing but a continuation of 1802 Fulani war over their host’s land as source of economic and political power fought in the name of religion.  The Zangon Kataf mid-May 1992 rioting which spread to Kaduna resulting in the death of about 100 people was according to Babangida who should know better, designed to derail his “transition without end’. We have since realized it afforded him an opportunity to nail Major General Zamani Lekwot, his political rival.

    The May 1999 Southern Kaduna Kafanchan outbreak of violence was undoubtedly political. It afforded many residents of Jama‘a emirate to protest not only against the appointment of a new Emir of Jama‘a but the entire emirate system. The appointment of an emir does not often reflect the wishes of the people. Theoretically, the people of an emirate select their emir for the sultan’s endorsement. But in reality, the choice is often restricted to the linage of the first 12 first flag bearers appointed by Uthman Dan fodio back in 1804.

    The June 24, 2012 bombing of the Christ the King Catholic in Zaria, leading to the death of 14 worshippers, with 32 injured, the bombing of the ECWA Church, in Wusasa, leading to the death of three people as well as the attack on Kaduna Shalom Church International by a suicide bomber leading to three deaths were all means to an end by those who hide under religion to pursue their selfish economic agenda. The Southern Kaduna  Christian youths  who came out on a revenge mission killing over 70 Hausa Muslims within two hours, and the response of their Muslim counterparts two days later attacking Christian targets in Tudun Wada, Unguwan Mua’azu, Trikania, Panteka and Kawo played out as scripted by their authors.

    The truth is that little has changed between the relations of the Fulani and its neighbors since pre-colonial period. Fulani settlers were once considered as aliens by the Hausa, their chief host with whom they were engaged in endless conflicts over grazing right and destruction of agricultural crops. The Fulani ended the conflicts by taking over political power from their Hausa hosts after the jihad.   It is instructive that of the 12 flag bearers appointed by Uthman Dan Fodio after his victory, only one was Hausa. Although the deposed reigning king of Gobir was not a believer, Islam had existed in the Hausa states for over 400 years before the Jihad.

    The crisis in Southern Zaria like those in other parts of Hausaland is over land. The Zango Katafs with their neigbours, Ikuku, Kaje Kamatan tribes consider themselves the owners of their land. They had coexisted in relative peace with the Hausa settlers who handled the marketing of their farm products. The Fulani conquest of the Hausa states changed the equation as the Zango Katafs had to pay a tribute of about 100 slaves annually to the Emir of Zaria. They were in fact in revolt against Zaria as at the time of the British conquest. Although the British colonial power took the power to levy away after the 1903 defeat of the Caliphate, they have after independence continued to view some of these areas as part of their grandfather’s fiefdom. Ahmadu Bello said this much during the Tiv populular uprising shortly after independence.

    The ongoing mindless killings by Fulani herdsmen in the Middle Belt region and the militancy in the Niger Delta unfortunately remain part of the unfinished Awo’s battle at the London constitutional conference that heralded Nigeria into Independence. He was the last man left standing insisting that ‘freedom for Nigeria must be freedom for individuals and groups making up the federation’ long after both Zik and Ahmadu Bello had reached a secret agreement to accept British proposal that the minority issue be postponed until after independence. Awo paid for his principled stand. Accused of encouraging the minorities to rise against their feudal lords in the name of democracy, he was incarcerated in 1962 with the Mid-West created out of the west, the most homogenous of the regions in 1963, not as an answer to demand of restive groups for self-actualization but to weaken Awo’s political base.

  • Of seers, sorcerers, Spirit and spirits

    Of seers, sorcerers, Spirit and spirits

    Nigerians love predictions. Who doesn’t? Imagine having a preview of a movie heralded by a storm of hype. It is, indeed, a rare privilege to have a glimpse into the future, especially now when there is so much uncertainty and anxiety in the world.

    But it is not given unto all men to have the oracular knowledge of telling the future with the clinical precision of a surgeon. It is highly spiritual. Deep. Even then, spiritualism is not to be mistaken for some psychic capabilities or clairvoyance or telepathy or necromancy and its numerous varieties that have been  commercialised by some men who are neither called nor chosen. No.

    In case you are wondering whether Editorial Notebook is on a voyage into some ethereal realm of mythological angels, fairies, apparitions and gnomes, you are not right. Even then you are not far from the truth. Not being gifted in matters spiritual nor trained in the art of fortune telling and palm reading, yours sincerely can only report such affairs with the finesse and accuracy that are the hallmarks of this column.

    So, this, in a nutshell, is mere reportage of what the wise ones – and those who some impatient fellows have dismissed as Bar Beach charlatans – have said lie in the belly of 2017. And boy what a rain of predictions for the new year.

    Take a bow Governor Ayo Fayose –yes; the Ekiti helmsman . He, surprisingly, flung open the floodgate of predictions. In that methodical style which his admirers credit him with, he took out two full pages in a national newspaper to advertise his 2016 predictions which he swore came to pass. He thereafter laid out in clear, bold and cold print the predictions for this year.

    His Excellency, apparently to caution those fellows who are wont to dismiss him as a loudmouth, chatterbox and stuntsman, swore that the Holy Spirit spoke with him. As if stung by bees, the busybodies descended on him. Where? When? Any witness? Was the governor in the spirit? Was the gubernatorial throat splashed with a gulp of spirits? In which language did the Spirit speak?

    One of them, an obviously charitable fellow who could easily pass for one of the governor’s numerous admirers, replied succinctly that he “reliably learnt” from a source close to an agbo jedi drink hawker who swore that the governor is one of her clients, that the Holy Spirit spoke one day as he bent down to pick his favourite lunch of roasted plantain and groundnuts at a roadside shack.

    The governor claimed that the Holy Spirit told him, among others, that the dollar will exchange for N600, the economy will move from recession to depression and a former head of state may pass on. “Hardship will be more as poverty continues to ravage the country. EFCC’s Magu may face prosecution,” the governor said after the encounter with the Holy Spirit.

    Now many, among them those who claim to have identified some purveyors of doomsday prophecies, are asking: “Is Fayose also among the prophets?”

    Since the pre-Christmas predictions of His Excellency, many others have  followed. Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, the revered General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, is quoted as predicting that “those troubling Nigeria will be relocated”.

    Relocated; where to? Sambisa? Panama? Aleppo? Banjul? Mogadishu? Won’t they begin to trouble their new location? Why can’t we just deal with them here? Must we always wait for others to lend a hand in tackling our trouble? Will they be relocated with their heirs who if left behind may become our new tormentors?

    The suggestions, permutations and postulations have been many. In fact, a cheeky fellow has reminded us all about a leading politician who vowed to relocate should then candidate Muhammadu Buhari win the presidential election. Buhari, needless to say, won the election and became the president. The politician, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, has since refused to relocate, despite being taunted by his opponents. His party, as you may have known, keeps sinking deeper and deeper into its self-inflicted trouble .

    Bishop Mike Okonkwo of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM) also has a word for those troubling Nigeria. They will face enormous problems, he predicted. “I know that presently those who have one way or the other destabilised the country, there will be more problems for them. There will be a demand from the government that they should return the money they looted,” the respected man of God said.

    To his prediction, I learnt, there was a roaring “amen!” from the huge congregation. But the critical audience who would not just take it all as spiritual are asking: “Who will demand that they return the loot? Senators? Magu? Will Magu survive now that corruption seems to have regained its breath and is fighting back desperately? Or will he be fed to the wolves? Will they, those troubling Nigeria, surrender their loot even if the government demands for it? Or will they elect to go to jail, return, visit a church for thanksgiving and stage a one-in-town revelry?”

    Rev. Okonkwo predicted that those who look unto God will have a turnaround. He described the year as “a year of new things”. He advised the Buhari administration to speak more to Nigerians on its challenges and its solutions so that the confidence of Nigerians in the government would not wane. He cited the bloodletting in southern Kaduna, saying the government’s attitude could give the impression that it approved the killings. Is anybody listening?

    The leader of the Northern Inter-Faith and Religious Organisations for Peace, Bishop Musa Fomson, in his new year message, predicted that Boko Haram’s fiendish leader Abubakar Shekau will be captured and brought to Abuja. What a spectacle that will be. Loquacious Shekau, who mocked Buhari and the military and told us that he would marry off and sell the Chibok girls, bound like a Lagos pick pocket being prepared for jungle justice and flown – boots,rifle and all that – to Abuja.

    Will he be allowed to name his sponsors? Will he let us into the workings of the insurgency that has taken thousands of lives, ruined homes and battered the future of many? Will he tell where the remaining Chibok girls are? Will he let us know the truth about his flag and his Koran that our gallant soldiers captured? Are they truly his or some other fellow’s as claimed by some social media irritants?

    Is he the original Shekau, the bearded one in those periodic videos?  Is Shekau a name taken up by any sect member on whose shoulder the mantle of leadership falls after the death of the incumbent? If so, how about the beards; grown and groomed to cover the face like the original? How about the voice and the drama? Make – believe? Who are his foreign backers?

    Alas, we may not resolve these and many other riddles of Boko Haram. I doubt if Shekau will not get the Mohammed Yusuf treatment, if he is ever captured. Yusuf (remember him?) was the young leader of the sect who was killed after soldiers captured him and handed him over to the police.

    Of all the predictions, one stands out for its scintillating political dimension.  Prophet Wale Olagunju, the presiding Bishop of Divine Seed Chapel Ministries, Ibadan said in a 52-point prophecy that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar will succeed Buhari in 2019.

    The prediction has elicited debates. The world is yet to recover from the hangover of maverick billionaire Donald Trump’s  victory in the United States election and Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU). Is an Atiku presidency a possibility now that it has been seen in the spiritual realm?

    Atiku, a member of the All Progressives   Congress (APC), has not announced that he is running. It is too early, many would say. But the Turaki has since launched into what is considered in political circles as a scurrilous attack on the Buhari administration.

    On which platform will Atiku run? Can he wrest the APC ticket from Buhari should the latter decide to run again? Asked to comment on Atiku’s plan to contest, former President Olusegun Obasanjo once said derisively: I dey laugh o! What will he do now?

    A cynical fellow, one of those “internet hyenas” on Facebook, asked nobody in particular: “Please, has T.B. Joshua released his 2017 prophecies?”Needles to say, he got many comments.

    Another released what he called his own predictions and swore with his wedding certificate that they would come to pass before the end of the year. “There shall be 28 days in February. Any car with an empty tank shall be immobile. If your bank account is in the red, you won’t be able to withdraw money. Every woman delivered of a baby shall have a boy or a girl. The volume of your urine shall be a function of your water intake. Hunger shall disappear the moment you eat. A new president will take office in the U.S. “

    He concluded with the confidence of an expert: “If these prophecies don’t come to pass, then I’m not a man of God.”

    Compliments.

  • Another mega-party? Wait a minute!

    We Nigerians are hearing again that yet another mega-party is about to show up in our country’s political space.  The news media are telling us that some of our foremost politicians are milling around, pulling together, and flexing their muscles towards creating a mega-party, with the intention of using it to sweep the present APC crowd off the high stage of our country’s politics and governance. Before we see the new mega-party, we want to have our say. Here is what we say.

    We don’t want another mega-party. What we want is a proper political party – a political party drawn from all strata of Nigerians, motivated only and solely to seek, promote, defend, and advance serious improvements in the management of Nigeria and in the quality of life of all Nigerians, a political party properly and democratically organized, open to the sensitivities, desires and hopes of all Nigerians, and doing what most Nigerians know and believe to be in their best interests and in the best interests of their country.

    What we know about mega-parties – what we have ever got from mega-parties – is ugly, to say the least. If Nigeria now sways on the verge of breaking up, it is largely because mega-parties have had chances to lay their hands on Nigeria, to distort Nigeria’s path, and to brutalize and pauperize the overwhelming majority of common Nigerians. NPN! PDP! Names from the depths of hell. Each is a creation of the obscene kleptocracy of the military dictatorships. Military officials come by force into power as soldiers earning no more than soldiers’ salaries, but in only a few years, when they step down or are forced to step down from power, they have become members of the special club of billionaires in the world. Then, fortified by the wealth they have stolen from Nigeria’s coffers, they establish a lien over the political life of Nigeria – by creating and empowering, or helping to create and empower, a mega-party of their elite friends and cronies. Naturally, the culture of the mega-party is to empower its elite members to steal, steal, steal, so as to become billionaires too. What all this rapacity can do to Nigeria and Nigerians does not matter in the least to these barons of loot. In their hands, things like Development Plans are, at best, mere deceptive jokes, and most often, designs for scooping out public money for sharing.

    Over-impressed by its awesome galaxy of high and mighty members, the mega-party can only dream of ruling Nigeria virtually forever. And to that end, it uses stolen public money to recruit and absorb the agencies that the Nigerian Constitution establishes for regulating various aspects of the life of Nigeria – the Police, the electoral commission, the Secret Service, the top Civil Service, the judiciary, and even the serving military brass. The combination of the mega-party with all these agencies thus becomes like an army of occupation forcibly holding Nigeria down to its will. It was no empty pride when a leader of the PDP bragged that his party would rule Nigeria for at least six decades. The true nature of churning cauldron of chaos.

    No, we do not want another mega-party. And we do not again want any party created, organized, and run like a mega-party. The effort put forth by a group of political leaders, from 2012 on, to push the PDP from the government of Nigeria was a patriotic venture. The PDP kind of government and leadership was destroying Nigeria, and most Nigerians were distressed and worried. The effort to push the PDP out deserved and easily earned the support of most Nigerians. But, unfortunately, the effort suffered one major defect. It emulated the mega-party method of party formation that was well known in Nigeria’s recent political history. It concentrated almost entirely on gathering and recruiting big barons across the country, and it highlighted and brandished the power of big money in politics. It paid no visible attention to ideas, programmes, plans and processes of successful governance and development in our type of country and, ultimately, it did not produce any such ideas, programmes and plans. Its emergence was magnificent, for sure, but it did not stand forth as a party dedicated to any clearly known body of ideas, ideals and goals – other than to boot out the PDP. It did not have a pillar of principles around which the truly faithful could rally and from which the merely self-seeking (or the merely ethnic-motivated) political wayfarer was likely to walk away.  The election manifesto it put forth was not a product of deep commitment but a mere afterthought. In that way, it made itself vulnerable to the assaults of big persons who accepted the invitation to membership or candidacy of the party and who had peculiar and surreptitious agendas of their own.

    The consequence of all these are now with us. The party won the election but immediately lost its constitutional right to control and direct the government. We Nigerians voted for a party that promised us change, but some of the key persons whom we elected on the platform of the party are now hissing at change and laughing in our face.

    So, we demand that those who have the heart to do it again must do it differently – very differently – this time around. The very existence of our country hangs in the balance; if they do it right now, they may become the saviours of our country.

    Before gathering the barons together to form a party, determine, first and foremost, what the objectives of the party will be – what you are recruiting people to come and do for their country. Very seriously consider this, be sure it is what you honestly and sincerely want to do for your country, and commit to it unreservedly. In the disaster we face as a country today, there are countless Nigerians, high and low, who desire to support serious efforts to save their country. There are countless Nigerians who strongly believe that our country does not have to be as poor as it is today and that the poverty, confusion and instability are all products of poor organization and poor management of Nigeria. Indeed, a revolution is already close to the surface in Nigeria. When the aged statesman, Maitama Sule, recently called for a revolution, he was speaking the minds of countless Nigerians. The critical population mass already exists for a mass movement for grabbing control of Nigeria from those who see politics as a means of self-enrichment and those whose mission in Nigerian politics is to impose and expand their own ethnic nation’s domination over Nigeria.  Very many prominent Nigerians are now crying for a restructuring of the Nigerian federation so that it may become efficient for development purposes. Many of these are saying that delay in restructuring the federation could soon lead to the dissolution of Nigeria. It is obvious to most Nigerians that a proper restructuring of our federation and widened regional autonomies (to empower each section to develop its resources and cure poverty among its people) could bring to an end even the most violent demands for secession in various regions.  The masses of Nigeria’s unemployed youths, the millions of other Nigerians, men and women, who are poor, hungry and destitute, and the countless Nigerians who abhor corruption in the public life of their country, are desperate for change. To create the party of change in these circumstances, the great and foremost need is to put before Nigeria a clear message stating the programme of change – the programme for the revival of Nigeria.  It is around this that efforts must then be made to recruit and rally members and supporters for the new party.

    The ideas and programmes must include clear sectoral programmes for the various sectors of national development – the economy (modern agriculture, rural development, modern job skills development, entrepreneurial development, infrastructural development, educational improvement and expansion, small business development, business assistance programmes, export promotion, etc.) It must also include plans for setting free various regulatory agencies (police, electoral commission, judiciary, etc.) to enable them to do their duties faithfully. And it must include a no-nonsense programme for eliminating public corruption.

    A party like this can be done successfully. I have seen it done in our country before – and I was one of the young intellectuals who contributed to it. I refer to the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) 1978-83, which, even in those times, was phenomenally successful at achieving membership and support all over Nigeria because of its great and wonderful development programmes and its well-known sincerity. We took years of diligent work to put those ideas and programmes together before we ever chose a name for the party. I know too that such an idea-driven and programme-driven party can indeed change Nigeria dramatically. In country after country like ours in the world, I have seen such parties change the directions of their countries for the better. That is what Nigeria needs now – not another so-called mega-party of the high and mighty that has no intentions for our country’s good.

  • Farewell to year of shocks

    Farewell to year of shocks

    Were 2016 to be a movie, it would have by now hit a kind of catharsis. Alas, it is no movie, yet it packs in its belly all the attributes of a box office hit.

    In its dying days, this dramatic year has refused to slow down. It keeps confounding world renowned futurists, among whom I am excited to report a governor is numbered. Where are you all those  who say good things hardly come from these climes? Those who thought His Excellency’s talent is limited to pulling stunts and raising hell have been shocked that necromancy has been added to his forte. Now they are saying derisively:”The devil finds work for idle hands.” That was after the governor had bought space in a national newspaper to advertise his predictions for this year that he swore to high heavens actually came to pass, but which his traducers pooh-poohed as mere rabble-rousing. He also listed for his ever-attentive audience the predictions for the coming year. His critics are still reeling from the shock.

    Back to business. The year 2016 continues to shock us all even in its last fortnight. It has been as if the United States has two presidents since billionaire Donald Trump shocked the world by winning the November 8 election, which Russia is believed to have somehow manipulated. You see, it is not only in Nigeria that these things happen; the best candidate in an election trailing the one grudgingly listed as also a runner suddenly becoming a frontrunner and then the winner.

    Trump has been making policy statements and exhibiting little statesmanship in his speeches. To him, the United Nations (UN) is a “club” for people to “have a good time”.

    Incensed by the president-elect’s excesses, the Obama administration reminds him that the United States has one president at a time. Besides, Obama says he could have beaten Trump if he had the opportunity of running for a third term. Shocked? Do not be. It is not only here that presidents wish they could run for a third term. The only difference is that Obama won’t say he never nursed such a wish.

    Yahaya Jammeh of The Gambia shocked the world when many days after conceding defeat in an election he suddenly recanted. He would not surrender his seat to the winner, he said. President Muhammadu Buhari and other ECOWAS leaders went to Banjul to persuade him to step down. He agreed. A few days after, he dismissed his visitors as busybodies who had no right to tell him to go. Now the world is watching how Jammeh’s 22-year iron-fist rule will end. Bloody?

    Entertainment giants won’t stop leaving in a shocking manner. Songster George Michael departed on Christmas Day, sending the global pop community into mourning.

    Pentecostal giant Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye was in Ekiti where he praised Governor Ayodele Fayose’s courage at defending his people. Being used to such encomiums, the governor’s admirers and aides saw it as a routine. Not so his critics and political opponents, particularly those who know nothing about the workings of a spiritual mind. In their shock, they lashed out at the man of God, querying why he visited and praised Fayose, who in their view does not merit such numinous privilege. We should know how to draw the line. What says the holy book about those our Lord  was sent to? Besides, is Pastor Adeboye not entitled to his own opinion? Have we stopped subscribing to the universal right to the freedom of speech?

    Just before Christmas Eve, photographs of  former Delta State Governor James Onanefe Ibori coming out of a British jail were splashed all over the Internet.  He was in for six years after being convicted for money laundering. His friends launched into a street dance that only the weather in its chilliness moderated.

    His kinsmen in Oghara have been dancing ever since over the imminent return of their dearest son. His London home has become a mini studio. Politicians are flying in to record their encounters with him. Champagne glasses in their hands, they pose for photographs with the Ogidigboigbo. All these are uploaded on the Internet to shock many who feel that the matter calls for some somberness and introspection. Among the shocked, it has now turned out, is former Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan who has told those celebrating Ibori’s release to be circumspect.

    In Lagos, rice merchants have been shocked out of their wits. They had thought Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s plan to flood the market with LAKE Rice, following his collaboration with his Kebbi State counterpart Abubakar Atiku  Bagudu was a mere threat. They thought they had smuggled in enough to saturate the market and, as usual, dampen the Yuletide spirit for the poor. Suddenly, LAKE Rice made its delicious debut. Even those who have been able to buy this rice for as low as N2,500 are shocked. Now many are saying with Lake Rice and Ebonyi Rice, Nigeria is on the way to conserving scare foreign exchange that has been going into rice importation.

    Nigerians were shocked when the military announced that Sambisa Forest, the dreaded redoubt of the Boko Haram terror machine, had been captured. It was, no doubt, the biggest Christmas present ever. It is, however, a matter of regret that some people have doubted this remarkable feat of our gallant troops, despite the pictorial and video evidence that are available. They have been asking questions. If indeed Sambisa has fallen, where are the Chibok girls? Where is Shekau, the loudmouth who leads –or led – the deadly group? Where are the other captives?

    More videos of the Sambisa operation have since been released. Only fools doubt proofs, according to Bishop David Oyedepo. Even in this season of shocks, our Armed Forces deserve some praise for their sacrifice, not doubts and denigration. They should be credited with some credibility, no matter how little.

    The Federal Government also shocked many with its new policy on whistle blowing. If you report a fraud or some loot stashed somewhere, you get five per cent of it. Since the news broke, a friend of mine has been threatening to set up a company to go all over the world in search of looted funds. He plans to have his members of staff working round the clock in Panama, Luxemburg, Switzerland and others where our privileged compatriots may have kept their hard earned cash.

    Besides, he is also hiring some local bankers who will let him into the financial affairs of some notable citizens who must explain how they came about their fortune or become victims of whistle blowing. Shocked? Do not be. Isn’t this, according to a consultant with vast experience, a creative way of creating jobs? Imagine five per cent of N10 billion, for instance. Just imagine.

    Even as many are yet to recover from the hangover of MMM’s shocking departure, Nigerians have turned it all into incredible jokes. A popular Yoruba song has suddenly become commonplace, now titled MMM:

    Mole mo ba mo tun gbaa pada,

    Mole mo ba mo tun gbaa pada,

    Mole mo ba mo tun gbaa pada,

    Ohun t’ota gba lowo mi o mole mo ba

    (I chased it and got it

    What the enemy has taken from me

    I got it)

    There is also a poster inviting people to a seven-day “powerful fire vigil”. It reads: “Mole Moba Motungbapada Ministry. Are you a MMM  investor? You are cordially invited to a 7 days powerful fire vigil. Theme: MAVRODI RETURN MY MONEY.Mavrodi da owo mi pada.

    Date: Jan. 7th -13th  2017. Venue: Main Bowl, Abuja National Stadium. Time: 9pm prompt. Come with your laptop, computer, I Pad, phone and every other thing you use in logging into MMM for anointing. Bishop Fireman Dapada (Baba Dapada Now Now, Chief Host).”

    The good thing is that in two days we will be saying farewell to this year of shocks.

    Compliments.

  • What a year!

    I do not remember how the year 2016 started but I sure remember how it is ending certainly not with a whimper but with a bang! A Russian military plane carrying a band made up mainly of innocent ladies and gentlemen took off from the Russian winter resort of Sochi and crashed afterwards into the Black Sea on its way to Syria where the singing troupe was going to perform and entertain Russian troops particularly the Air Force that had been involved in genocidal bombing of Arab children, women and men without any discrimination. They were doing this at the behest of the Syrian President Bashar -al Azar who will rather rule over a destroyed country and millions of his dead compatriots than abdicate peacefully after more than 40 years of his family’s rule over the unfortunate country. Vladimir Putin was given the opportunity and freedom to test new weapons largely barrel bombs on a defenceless people who are justly struggling to be free.   What is most galling is that the whole world stood aside and unconcerned while one of the oldest civilizations is destroyed through indiscriminate bombing. Syria is the only country where a small group of people still speak Aramaic the language spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ more than 2000 years ago.

    I remember eight or nine years ago when the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations made a passionate plea to the western powers that were goading Syrian opponents of Bashar -al-Azar not to support them because of the complex and delicate nature of Syria. He argued about the racial and religious mix up of the country of Shia, Alawites, Sunnis, Turkmen, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds, Arab Christians and Muslims as well as remnants of Jews. The western powers were obsessed with so-called Arab spring and opposition to the dictatorship and one family rule in Syria. With apparent people’s revolt in Egypt, Tunisia and overthrow of colonel Muamar -al-Ghadafi  by the NATO alliance, the western powers wanted to get rid of the troublesome presence of Bashar in Syria. But they did not know how to do it because those opposed to the Syrian regime were hopelessly divided among themselves between Al -Nustra Front allied with Al Qaida, Syrian Kurds fighting for autonomy and the so-called moderate Arab front as well as the forces of Abubakar Al -Baghdadi who had carved  out some part of Northern Syria particularly Raccah which he had declared as the capital of a new caliphate which had no respect for western division of Arabs into states in post-First World War political arrangement. Some of the rebels expected American support but Obama had committed his presidency to bringing American soldiers home from unending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and he did not want to be bogged down in Syria. At a point he declared that the use of chemical weapons in Syria was a red line which he would not permit the Syrian regime to cross. Although eventually the Syrian regime used chemical weapons against its opponent, but it later decided under American pressure to destroy its chemical weapons under international observation. Obama missed the opportunity of robust intervention afterwards but engaged in fruitless, futile and interminable diplomacy with the Russians while Iran, Hezbollah and even Shiite militia from Iraq poured into the Shia army of Bashar. The whole world stands aghast as Syria and Iraq are destroyed both by Russia in Syria and the USA in Iraq  respectively  each using Arab people as targets in bombing campaigns and indiscriminate use of drones . While this is going on, suffering humanity in Yemen, Palestine and Afghanistan are daily slaughtered by either co-religionists aided by external forces or weapons. The whole Arab civilization is under siege of the terrorist Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant (ISAL).Libya on the other hand has been reduced to war lordism by several factions including those pledging themselves to the caliphate of Baghdadi. The most advanced Islamic state Turkey is facing implosion and destruction and collapse because of the wars on its frontiers.

    Here at home at a time of recession and economic down turn we are spending money that could have been used for development in fighting a dangerous war against Boko Haram insurgents that have refused to give up after five years of incendiary campaign that has virtually destroyed  Borno State in particular and the North-east in general . The recent capture of their strong hold of Sambisa may yet be the beginning of the ending of this bitter sectarian internecine war. Many parts of Nigeria are also witnessing various ethnic or economic wars centring around herdsmen killing farmers who refuse to allow their cattle to forage on their farms.  There are all over the north cattle rustlers stealing cows and reprisal campaign against them by the herdsmen. In the Delta Nigeria is held by the jugular by militants challenging the right of government to the oil in their areas. This has led to a low intensity warfare there for the past decades .The security forces appear stretched to their limit.

    This year has also witnessed the rise of nationalism in the world destroying what policy makers thought was an irreversible world of globalization with its touchstones of free trade, democracy, fundamental human rights, regional integration and general peace. States that trade with each other do not generally go to war against one another. Free trade with emphasis on comparative advantage was thought to be the antidote and panacea for global conflict. Not anymore. The most successful regional economic integration – the European Union is unravelling before our very eyes. Britain voted to leave the EU. Others like France and Italy may follow leaving Germany with the carcass of a formerly successful attempt at regional integration and world order. Thus the political order that has ensured that fractious European nations live in harmony is about to give up in the face of rancorous nationalism

    The unthinkable happened in the United States where an inexperienced wheeler dealer of a man like Donald. J. Trump is about to take over the most powerful and prosperous country in the world armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons. This is a man who had not paid income tax for the past 20 years and who set up a bogus university of how to become rich and collected millions from people and awarded bogus degrees. This is a man who confessed groping women, trying to force a married woman to have sex with him and then boasted about it, but who campaigned raining abuses on immigrants, Muslims and all visible minorities. In short, he made racism respectable in America where he used coded words to “give white Americans back their country” which was about to be stolen by their enemies, the non-white Mexicans, Chinese and others. Suddenly White Russia as far as Trump is concerned should join America to bomb out the brains of those Muslims in the Middle East troubling the peace of Europe and America. Trump talks glibly about how he may use nuclear weapons against American enemies. He asked naively “ why make weapons you cannot use?” He wants to build more nuclear weapons and modernize those in American silos. He wants to outdo any country or group of countries in nuclear race . He wants to take on China in a trade war and he has assembled a cabinet of billionaires and millionaires to run his country next month when he will be inaugurated as president of the United States taking over from a cerebral president like Barack Obama. Nobody knows what to expect and the frightening thing is that Trump does not have a coherent well-articulated policy. We can only hold our breath and pray for the best

    This year has  also witnessed so many disasters all over the world ranging from plane crashes ,  tsunamis , earthquakes , killer wild fires, hurricanes , typhoons ,tornados to  mention a few . It has also witnessed the death of several global artists, and distinguished persons locally and internationally.

    The most painful loss to me is Fidel Castro one of the greatest men of the 20th century. He was largely responsible for removing the stain of helplessness and hopelessness of the black man even on his own continent. If he had not sent 8000 thousand troops to Angola, the South African racist regime would not have met its Waterloo in Quito Quanavalle in Angola and it would have installed a puppet regime in that would have put paid to the struggle in Namibia and South Africa itself. Fidel also routinely sent doctors to many African countries whenever they suffered from their innumerable outbreaks of epidemic diseases. We have to tell future Africans what Fidel Castro did for our continent. A military barrack, Defence College or academy or the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos or even the University of Abuja can be named after him. Nigeria and Africa owes him our debt of gratitude.

    One only hopes and prays that the worst is over and that 2017 Will usher in a period of joy, happiness prosperity, and above all peace in our country in our time and in the world at large. Happy new year to my readers.

  • Ode to a martyr

    He died doing what he knew best to do – controlling traffic and ensuring orderliness on the road.  That fateful Thursday morning of December 15, 2016, Surajudeen Olatunji Bakare left home hale and hearty. But something kept telling him that all was not well. He could not lay a finger on what it was and so he sought divine intervention. He called his widow, Joke, and children to pray for him. He knew that with prayers we can conquer evil. So, he set out for work after his wife, children and parents, who he called on phone,  had prayed for him.

    If only he knew what lay ahead, he would not have left home. His widow and children too would have stopped him from stepping out if they knew that was the last time they would see him. Putting aside his uneasiness, the late Bakare headed for work since he had a special assignment to carry out that day. The day had been set aside to deal with the menace of tanker drivers, who park indiscriminately on Apapa roads. Despite warnings from the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) and the police, the drivers have remained recalcitrant.

    They do not give a hoot about other motorists and road users. Once they park their trucks in that axis under the guise of waiting to load fuel at the depots that dot Apapa, nothing can move them to leave the road.  It is this loading of fuel that they use as excuse to cause congestion in Apapa, leaving motorists and residents to spend hours or at times pass the night on the road. This was the challenge the late Commander Bakare and his team faced on December 15 when they set out to clear the road. We all know the tanker drivers for who they are. They are short tempered and easily irritated and can do anything to have their way.

    And I think this is why Mobile policemen are attached to LASTMA operatives to ensure that tanker drivers do not become unruly in the process of getting them out of the road. Life does not mean anything to these brutes of tanker drivers. They value their trucks more than their own lives. So, in dealing with them, LASTMA men must be tactful and security conscious. The late Bakare tried to be, but something went wrong. What went wrong? This is what the government must find out.

    I do not know the number of operatives that were with him that day, but certainly, he could not have been alone on such a mission. I still wonder where his team members and the security operatives were when he was being lynched by truck drivers. How did it happen? Did he do anything wrong? These are some of the questions I have been asking myself since the incident happened. Is it now an offence for a traffic manager to call erring motorists to order? The late Bakare knew the enormity of the assignment he was going for that day. This was why he asked his family to pray for him before he left home and never returned. Recalling her husband’s last hours before he left his Itele, Ogun State home, the widow told this paper :

    ”My husband woke up and asked me to pray for him. He said he was going on operation and that I should pray that the operation be successful and I did. He woke his children up and asked them to do the same thing. We all did; we prayed for him and saw him off to the car. He gave me some warning before he drove off and I never understood what he meant. I never knew that those were to be his last words to me. He told me not to do what I am not supposed to do. I still do not know the meaning”. Elders say those about to die have the premonition of their death. Was this why the late Bakare asked his family to pray for him that morning? One  sure thing is that Bakare did not want to die when he died. But as Shakespeare observed ”death is a necessary end that will come when it will come”.

    Whether we like it or not when our time to go comes, nothing can stop it. We can see this from the late Bakare’s case. But the way he died is despicable. He was killed by animals in human skin, who feel that they must always have their way whether they are right or wrong. Was there no way to have averted his death? I think there was, if only the security agencies, especially the police, had risen to the occasion. Rather than rush to the helpless Bakare’s aid, he was left for beasts to maul. What is the essence of donning a uniform if it cannot save you in time of trouble? His uniform alone, which shows that he was an agent of state, should have deterred those mad men who descended on him from carrying out the dastardly act. What did he do wrong to warrant such a hot death?

    They claimed that a motor boy was killed by a LASTMA van. Assuming that is true, is it enough to maul him for that? The government has since said that the motor boy, who was sleeping under a petrol tanker, was overrun by his own driver while trying to evade arrest for wrong parking.  Where is that driver? Where are his colleagues and others who lynched Bakare?This matter should not be allowed to die just like that. All those involved in Bakare’s murder must be brought to book. The late Bakare deserves justice, his widow, children and parents too deserve justice.

    If the tanker drivers should get away with his murder, only God knows what they will do next. Bakare would have died in vain if we allow these drivers to still ride roughshod over us in Apapa. It is high time they were flushed out of the place. I know that the late Bakare’s boss, Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG) Chris Olakpe (rtd) will not allow him to die in vain. The Olakpe I know will not rest until those scoundrels are brought to book. My heart goes out to Bakare’s widow, children and parents. May his soul rest in the Lord’s bosom.

     

    2017

    In 72 hours, we will be in a new year. It is that time of the season to look back at the outgoing year and also to project into what the new year will bring. I pray that 2017 will bring good tidings for us. The much-talked about issue in the land today is the economy. It was not rosy at all in 2016 because of the plummeting oil price, the scary exchange rate and the ailing real sector. Nothing seemed to work in our country. Power, as usual, was epileptic, with the distribution companies loading us with tales upon tales of why the situation has not improved despite the privatisation of the sector. Power is key to a nation’s economy. If the power equation is not right, nothing will be right. Security is also vital. The government has been battling insurgency with all it has, but robbery and kidnapping seem to be on the rise. It needs an holistic approach in the handling of security matters. With Sambisa Forest seized from Boko Haram and Camp Zero reduced to Ground Zero, the government should ensure that the insurgents do not regroup elsewhere in the country. We say never again to insurgency. Our major headache in the outgoing year is recession, which the citizenry now blame for everything, especially the high cost of goods and services. The government has promised that things would change in 2017. It is change that we voted for in 2015, so if things change it will not be a surprise but a thing of joy to us. Nigerians cannot wait for recession to go and with oil price inching upward gradually, we may have cause to smile again in 2017. Happy New Year in advance.

     

  • In defence of Ibori and Niger Delta

    James Ibori, celebrated at home by his people but haunted into prison by his Nigerian and foreign detractors, is unarguably a Niger Delta hero. Jailed by Southwark Crown court  on April 17, 2012 for 13 years after he ‘pleaded guilty to 10 counts of money laundering and stealing $50m from the Delta State treasury’, he was released from prison last week. For turning out in their thousands across Niger Delta region to celebrate his release, the good people of Niger Delta have gone through severe stress and strain.  Professional mourners who weep louder than the bereaved have continued to libel, malign and vilify Ibori’s Niger Delta compatriots. Critics have not been restrained by the Delta State government official statement that acknowledged Ibori as the political leader of the people of Niger Delta. Speaking on behalf of the government, the Commissioner for Information, Patrick Ukah, stated unequivocally, “We are all very happy that our son, our brother, former governor has been released. … As a state, we don’t have issues with our former governor.”  “Ibori remains our political messiah”, added Chief Robert Eyaufe, One of Ibori’s classmates in secondary school,

    Neither have they been restrained by the intervention of Senator Peter Nwabaoshi (PDP, Delta North) who flew to London to pass a vote of confidence on James Ibori as ‘a good man’. According to him, “There may never be a governor in Nigeria who will sit in the cell or prison and make a governor; make a senator, support the Senate President, and make his daughter a member of the House of Assembly… and make a Speaker (of the House of Representatives).

    Rather than be humbled by this level of support, what we got was a cheeky remark by Debo Adeniran, the executive chairman, Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, that “Ibori has become a king in a community of thieves”, adding that   “demonstration and celebration of Ibori’s release  is a demonstration that crime is a cultural act in that community”. He was joined by Olanrewaju Suraj of Civil Society Network against Corruption, who also says that ‘Ibori’s conviction cannot be said to be politically motivated because it was not carried out by Nigerian courts but by courts of international jurisdiction.’ If you ask me, I will say such statement is in itself politically motivated. Who but the victim is in a better position to determine a politically motivated conviction? Suraj instead of stopping at that went on to add that ‘the majority of the people there (Niger Delta) don’t see their so-called own people as the enemies of the progress of the region”. The verdict of those who voted for him twice and declared him ‘political leader and a messiah’ after serving prison term for the theft of their funds should in my view carry more weight.

    I think what can be said of the Niger Delta region is that it is a land of two extremes where the poor and disadvantaged suffer persecution complex while the privileged who Ken Saro-Wiwa christened “vultures”, that live on the blood of their poor”, suffer from entitlement complex. To the former, outsiders are the villains while those live by swearing in their names, are the heroes. This perhaps explains why Ibori’s other Niger Delta leaders were no less loved.

    Navy Commander Alfred Diette Spiff, governor of River from May 1967 to 1975, who could not pay River State teachers’ salaries as at when due was found to be cruising on the high seas in his private ship on the night of Murtala Muhammed’s coup against Gowon in 1975. Following the probe of Gowon’s military administrators, Diette Spiff lost a rank, his ship and some 16 properties in choice areas of Port Harcourt. His people’s faith in his leadership remained unshaken. They went on to crown him the ‘Amanyanabo Twon’ of Brass in Bayelsa. Peter Odili was governor of Rivers 1999-2007. He was accused by EFCC of diverting N100b states fund for personal use at the end of his tenure. He however secured Justice Ibrahim Buba’s perpetual injunction against trial, an injunction recently described by Presidential Advisory Committee on Corruption (PACAC) that has gone on to recommend his retrial by EFCC, as ’odious, perverted and irresponsible’. Odili, highly respected by the dreadful Niger Delta militants was the kingmaker of all his successor governors including Wike who recently acknowledged his contribution during a church thanksgiving service to his emergence as governor of Rivers. We had the late Diepreye Almieyeseigha, governor of Bayelsa 199-2007. He was first arrested in London in 2005 for stealing the resources of his people to buy four houses worth about 10 million pounds in London and for keeping one million pounds cash at his London home and about two million pounds in his bank account. After jumping bail to escape to Nigeria, he was accused by EFCC of spending his people’s funds to buy $401,913 house in Massachusetts and another $600,000 house in Rockville Maryland USA. EFCC got him indicted through the courts but received presidential amnesty from President Jonathan, another illustrious son of Niger Delta in 2013. Lucky Igbinedion was governor of Edo 1999-2007. He was found guilty of embezzling $24m and was ordered by Justice Abdulahi Kafarati of Federal High Court Enugu to pay a fine of N3m. His indictment had little effect on his popularity among his people. Despite the decay and collapse infrastructure he left behind at the end of his tenure, the candidate he openly supported and promoted in the recent governorship election in Edo State scored about 250,000 votes to the 290,000 of Obaseki, the candidate of Oshiomhole generally praised for his outstanding performance compared only to the Ogbemudia magic era of the 70s.  And finally was Ibori for whom the drums are being rolled out after successfully serving a prison term for stealing $50m from the Delta state treasury.

    Add to the above the declaration of President Jonathan the most successful Niger Delta politician of this century that ‘stealing is not corruption’; we begin to see a trend. It is not an accident that women from Niger Delta along with some 23 different groups from the area have been demonstrating in Lagos and Abuja in solidarity with Mrs. Patience Jonathan who without shame belatedly laid claim to some fictitious accounts to which EFCC had traced some of the ‘Dazukigate’ slush funds.

    And finally, we cannot vilify groups within a federal set up, if they choose to celebrate their culture without apologies. The British we have blamed for our woes for 50 years warned us that as a multi-ethnic society where different groups are at different levels of cultural development, the federating units must run a government based on the culture and creativity of their forebears. Our ill-equipped military for selfish reasons turned our country into a ‘unitary federalism’ creating in the process more divisions. What is going on in the Niger Delta region is not different from what obtains in even advanced cultures of the Western societies where the privileged elite exploit the underprivileged. The difference is only in paradigm change from the law of nature which is the survival of the fittest.

    With a federal arrangement based on consensus of federating ethnic groups, political elite that choose to retain the strategy deployed by the Fulani invaders of the Hausa states after 1804 and those who believe it is in their enlightened self-interest to advance to the one Awo and his new emergent political elite adopted to transform their agrarian Yoruba society between 1952 and 1959 will be at liberty to do so.

  • The stink of Buhari’s ‘change’

    In the run-up to the last general elections, Nigeria’s former ‘first lady,’ Patience Faka Jonathan, described her husband, Goodluck Jonathan’s arch rival, Muhammadu Buhari, as ‘brain dead.’ She undoubtedly perverted truth in manic, uncouth rage at Buhari’s candidacy via the All Progressives Congress (APC). Buhari was not and has never been brain dead. He is simply incapable of genius. This is surely interesting given the APC’s shrill marketing and presentation of Buhari as the best thing that would be happening to Nigeria in a long while.

    Yeah, Buhari happened to Nigeria. He defied the odds and emerged president in a keenly contested election. At his emergence, a great segment of the citizenry, this writer inclusive, heaved rhythmic sighs of relief. Everybody waited devotedly to experience Buhari and the APC’s gospel of ‘change.’ Having sacked Goodluck Jonathan and his People’s Democratic Party (PDP), not a few Nigerians believed the country would eventually be rid of corruption, mismanagement and a legion of deviously orchestrated misdemeanours characteristic of Jonathan’s PDP. But like a recalcitrant bug that will not go away, mismanagement, corruption and a legion of more carefully orchestrated misdemeanours have resurfaced in the nation’s corridors of power, on Buhari’s watch.

    However, this writer would be committing duplicity similar to that which Buhari and his APC inflicts on Nigerians even as you read, if he fails to acknowledge the flashes of competence betrayed by Buhari and his bumbling government. Buhari’s initiative at establishing one purse for the Nigerian government is worthy of commendation. Mr. President’s military campaign against the dreaded Boko Haram is barely commendable too. Although, he has failed woefully at keeping his promise to rescue Chibok girls and exterminate the terrorist sect within his professed timeline, the military has succeeded considerably, at containing the terrorists’ activities. This does not excuse the fact that the Nigerian military still suffers the affliction of saboteurs, inadequate funding, lack of essential weaponry, among other ills.

    Buhari also promised to rescue Nigerians from the moral failings of his predecessor’s leadership. He hasn’t. And it is impossible for him to do that while his cabinet reeks as a cesspit of individuals with damaged character. It is no doubt heartrending to see the president discard his cloak of sanctimoniousness to wine, dine and sing the praises of men he earlier identified as corrupt and unworthy of public office.

    Sycophants and Buhari groupies would deem his radical mutation as a happenstance borne of political expediency. They will tell Buhari that “In politics, there are certain compromises that you have to make…Occasionally, you to wine and dine and hawk your soul to the devil (s).” And Buhari, has undoubtedly, mastered the art of such political expediencies.

    Governing Nigeria is vastly more complicated than Buhari thought. All kinds of things can go wrong. A lot of things have gone wrong. If Buhari understood his limitations, he has done too little to cushion the consequences on the citizenry. Besides peopling his government with ‘milk men,’ characters whose chief expertise subsists in milking the proverbial cow even as they are grossly ignorant and inept at nurturing the cow and preserving it, he has failed in several spheres of governance.

    Despite taking several months to seek out his ‘winning, extraordinary team,’ Buhari ended up afflicting Nigerians with ‘over-recycled characters’ many of whom came with hideous baggage around their necks.

    The real test of his Presidency came with the continued fall in oil prices and the fall in the value of the naira. Buhari’s reaction was predictable: he sought to defend the naira by keeping its official exchange rate relatively low even as the currency fell irretrievably in the black market.

    Inflation sky-rocketed across the country causing hardship that permeated class boundaries. Businesses collapsed, banks executed mass retrenchment of staff, sole proprietorships floundered and suffered gruesome, excruciating death. At the backdrop, PDP and Buhari’s APC governors owed salaries even as they threw extravagant parties across the seas.

    Buhari and his ministers enjoyed the luxuries and entitlements of office while they preached cold, bitter truth to Nigerians screeching: “You need to suffer now to make amendments for the wastage of the past; Jonathan and the PDP destroyed everything; PDP is the cause of your hardship; Things will get better in 2017 only if you persevere.”

    Buhari also failed to deliver on his lifeboat palliative; that is, the ridiculous N5, 000 pittance promised to the unemployed and impoverished at election time. He has also gone back on his promise to employ 500, 000 unemployed graduates as teachers. His government recently announced that these teachers would be trained under its social welfare scheme to serve as voluntary teachers.

    His brazen offensive against institutionalised corruption has yielded to his targets’ immoderate lust for riches and priapism of want. Even his ‘change’ agents are currently tarred with these perversions widely regarded as the fault of dupes and satyrs. As you read, President Buhari’s much professed anti-corruption campaign is being interpreted in several quarters as arrant posturing. Till date, Buhari and his anti-graft missioners are unable to see to a fruitful end, the prosecution of established looters of public fund among other perpetrators of corruption.

    His inability to address the degeneracy within his political party and cabinet has become counterproductive to his efficiency as president and anti-corruption crusader. The APC has become a cesspool of Nigeria’s dreaded elements. Like this writer intoned in an earlier piece, of Buhari’s ministers and ‘compatriots’ in the APC, too many are vectors, mortal agents of the worst kind of viruses. They have made his government food for worms.

    From the moment of their acceptance into the fold, the infestation of Buhari’s administration commenced but Buhari and his political groupies naively maintained that if the head – that is, Buhari – be moral, the body (his cabinet and underlings) too will have no choice but get with his program.

    He is either naive or duplicitous to dream of transcendental reforms and recourse from the country’s plummet down the ravine of corruption while he hobnobs with vectors of corruption.

    Is Buhari like his ministers, a dubious change agent feigning a moral growth crusade? Unlike certain APC and PDP governors and senators, Buhari and his ministers were expected to epitomise a moral, philosophical rampart that will continually uphold the strife of contraries by which true, positive ‘change’ evolves.

    Sadly, they aren’t. Thus the incumbent APC government manifests as yet another disease of governance and civilisation. Yet Buhari started out as a man devoted to wiping out corruption. He sought to do that while conveniently turning a blind eye to his inadequacies and self-imposed handicaps, or compromises, if you like. He forgets that nature and history only cares to identify individuals as intrinsic part of species and never as a lone genus.

    Buhari’s mantra of chastity and change is diametrically opposed to the realities of his politics and mutating ethics. Our president has diluted his moralist communion with toxic liquor. Thus he evolves as a revolutionary of the comedies. He won’t eliminate besmirched society by redeeming morals with the amoral. Our Buhari has eventually lost himself shying from the pathway of moralist dystopia.

    Let’s hope he rediscovers his groove in 2017. Our Buhari, the presumed ‘change’ agent, may yet pamper us with ‘change’ we can believe in and prosper by.

  • Magu, magun and all that magomago

    Magu, magun and all that magomago

    A visit to the barber’s place is always exciting nowadays. The gossip, the jokes, the commentaries- on soccer, politics, medicine, law and, indeed, every subject under the sun, including cosmology – by conceited  experts parading doubtful credentials.

    This scorching afternoon there is an urgent matter of state, as a young fellow with a scary grin put it. The barber, a short man with a sturdy physique undermined by a bulgy tummy, takes his hand off the clippers to listen to the young man.

    “This Magu matter is really getting interesting. Why will senators find him unfit for the EFCC job, which he has done with so much passion, getting more kudos than knocks? They claim to be acting on a security report,” he says in a mournful tone.

    The reaction is electric – sharp and immediate. It is like emptying a bowl of dry maize before chickens. A row breaks out. A crossfire of arguments. A big scramble to be heard. In no time, the ever-busy shop becomes a scene of a hot debate between two sides – one for Magu and the other against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) acting chair.

    An elderly man engrossed in a game of draught suddenly looks up to join the discussion. The fire-fight takes a break. All is quiet. “You see, the Senate’s action should be put in the right perspective,” the man begins in a voice tinged with the magisterial calmness of a judge. All is quiet.

    “You see, these are complex matters. We need to understand the contest and the context of it all. Magu, since he mounted the saddle, has turned himself into a strange kind of magun that has been troubling those who see Nigeria as a mugun who must be exploited to death. That is why you have this elite magomago of rejection and all that drama.”

    “Sir, you have turned it all into some esoteric matter. We are confused. You may wish to come down to our level,” says the young man, his face squeezed betraying his ignorance.

    The old man adjusts his thick, black jacket, his chest displaying what obviously used to be a white t-shirt, which has seen better days. From the inner pocket, he whips out a small bottle of a particular drink, opens the cover and turns the contents into his mouth. The smell of gin fills the air. He shakes his head violently and coughs repeatedly. “Hmmm! Hmmm!!. He clears his throat.

    “Pardon that short distraction. You see, these are also spiritual matters and to deal with them adequately, you must be in the spirit. In Yoruba , there is a juju called magun. Loosely translated, magun is ‘do not climb’. When a man suspects his woman of infidelity, he sets the juju against any man who may attempt to see her in the other room (apology to the eminent originators of that elegant phrase). The strange man falls down, kicking his legs and punching the air in a desperate battle to survive the lethal duel with his invisible opponent. He foams from the mouth. If the woman fails to raise the alarm for elders to rush down there, the man may die.

    “The young man Magu, firm and stubborn, has hit some senators and they are foaming in the mouth like magun victims. Can’t you see the conspiracy, the magomago in the botched exercise? I understand that about 15 per cent of the  senators are being investigated by the EFCC. Why won’t they join any other organisation to stop Magu? You think they are muguns (fools, blockheads)?”

    “You see, when Magu hits you, you confess all; you vomit some of your loot and if you’re the obdurate type, you face the law.”

    “But, sir, could the Senate have ignored those allegations against Magu? The N40m apartment, flying in somebody’s jet and keeping documents at home and others.”

    “Really? (The old man smiles, his face glowing with derision). Forget about all that. Why was he not asked to defend himself? You see, there is what we call the principle of Audi alteram partem, that is to say, ‘let the other side be heard’. Now, Magu knows there is no mugun in the Senate.”

    My business done, I leave the barber shop. What will be Magu’s fate? Will he ever get the opportunity to defend his integrity? Let us agree that the Department of State Services (DSS) is reliable; are its allegations against Magu as solid as its integrity? Will President Muhammadu Buhari seek a second opinion on this matter? Will he stand by Magu? Is Magu getting a taste of his own medicine – as some have suggested?

    There have been many suggestions about the future of the EFCC? Many names have come up on the list of those being touted as likely successors. I do not think that we should see this as a problem at all.

    Why don’t we just draft in a distinguished senator? Such a candidate will not need any screening. He will just be asked to take a bow and go ahead to take his job. That way we would have been saved the horror of celebrating screening a security report that makes no room for its subject to defend himself.

    With a senator in charge at the agency, there will be peace and harmony in the land. Our politicians and their allies in the corporate world will no longer don the garb of anxiety as they go about their legitimate businesses. The wealthy, among who are distinguished senators are privileged to be counted, will be free to spend their hard-earned cash, which those who will never understand how these things work, will continue to refer scornfully to as loot. Did they carry any gun or dynamite to tear down the treasury?

    The Executive will no longer worry about those frivolities that we see as essential elements of governance. Newspapers will no longer report arrests of prominent citizens and salaciously sleazy stories. In other words, there will no longer be media trials of our best, big and bright men, many of whom have been hauled before the courts just because they have had the chance to serve us. We will not have to spend scarce foreign exchange on handcuffs. There will be few litigations and we will not need to explain the difference between prosecution and persecution and stealing and corruption.

    The cash pumped into investigation and awareness campaigns will be saved for other matters of national importance, such as the revival of the cassava bread project that held so much promise until it got to the point of delivery. Even at the Presidential Villa where it made its tasty debut, the loaf has been shoved off the breakfast table.

    Pardon the slight diversion. I return to the matter of the battle for EFCC chair.

    What is more, with a senator in charge, it will be easier for the EFCC Act to be amended so that all those powers can be re-examined to give the organization a human face.

    Those fellows who are impervious to change – and reason –  and for whom obstinacy has become an incurable disease may want to recall that a former senator once spoke of how he surveyed the huge chamber, shook his head and said it was filled up with people he had either arrested or locked up for one crime or the other. So what? That was an old Senate; this is the Eighth Senate.

    Besides, they may claim that corruption is fighting back. How? Isn’t that a cliché? And if it is fighting back, is that not to be expected?  Aren’t some of our compatriots already singing “bring back our corruption”, comparing what they describe as good old days of abundance and these days of recession?”

    If a senator heads the EFCC, he will at least ask the authorities who the landlords of his apartment are, even if the government procured the facility. How much rent was paid? How much did the furnishing, including the door mat, cost? Is it local or imported? Who made the furniture? What of the kitchen utensils? The cutlery? The dishes? Are they imported ? Were they procured, purchased or obtained or bought? Who got the contract? Or was it direct labour? Of what fabric are the window blinds made? Imported ? Local?

    Being conversant with the law and its workings, a distinguished senator will ask all these questions  – and more – so as not to be a liability to the war against corruption when he gets this all-important job.

    Some names have come up as being tipped for the job. Commissioner  of Police Zakari Biu (retd.). Remember Biu – the scourge of many a  journalist and activists, who the late Gen. Sani Abacha (of fearful memory), used to scourge his regime’s opponents, including members of  NADECO? Biu,the one who retired into obscurity after getting  into trouble when Boko Haram kingpin Kabiru Sokoto escaped from custody; remember him? There are also Comptroller-General of Customs Hamid Ali, a retired Colonel, Assistant Inspector-General (AIG) Amodu Ali (retd.) and pioneer EFCC Chair Nuhu Ribadu.

    As if to join the race and prove bookmakers right, just three days after Magu’s rejection by the Senate, a senator stepped up his own self-imposed anti- corruption war. He issued a two-page advertorial in national newspapers, urging the citizenry to support Buhari to win the war.

    And those fellows who will never believe in change, let alone give anybody a chance, began to gossip, grinning from ear to ear and whispering: “Is Buruji Kashamu also among the warriors?”